Spring 2021 - Reassessing Central Bank Independence
R. Hockett, Two Blades, One Scissors: Central Bank Independence with (Some) Central Bank Allocation

July 14, 2021

Robert Hockett, Cornell Law School

Just Money has arranged yet another timely and well-framed symposium. I could not be more delighted to take part. I’d like here to highlight the bearing on this season’s symposium topic
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R. Hockett, Two Blades, One Scissors: Central Bank Independence with (Some) Central Bank Allocation

Roundtable: Public Money
R. Hockett, The Inclusive Value Ledger: A Public Platform for Digital Dollars, Digital Payments, and Digital Public Banking

September 28, 2020

Robert Hockett, Cornell Law School

One fruitful way of thinking about money is simply as ‘that which pays’ in a payments system or ‘that which counts’ in a system of transaction-associated value accounting.
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R. Hockett, The Inclusive Value Ledger: A Public Platform for Digital Dollars, Digital Payments, and Digital Public Banking

Current Scholarship
The Democratic Digital Dollar: A Digital Savings & Payments Platform for Fully Inclusive State, Local, and National Money & Banking Systems

Author: Robert Hockett

Many national and subnational units of government see a need for more inclusive money, payment, and retail banking systems for the capture, storage, and transfer of spendable value among their constituents.
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The Democratic Digital Dollar: A Digital Savings & Payments Platform for Fully Inclusive State, Local, and National Money & Banking Systems

Banking: Intermediation or Money Creation
R. Hockett & S. Omarova, What Do Banks Intermediate?

February 5, 2020

Robert Hockett, Cornell Law School
Saule Omarova, Cornell Law School

Apparently there still are people who believe that the principal role of commercial banks is to ‘intermediate’ between depositors and borrowers – lending the funds of the former to the latter at a premium, conveying a portion of that premium to the former, and pocketing the remainder.
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R. Hockett & S. Omarova, What Do Banks Intermediate?

Current Scholarship
Are Bank Fiduciaries Special?

Author: Robert Hockett

A growing body of post-crisis legal and economic literature suggests that future financial crises might be averted by tinkering with the internal governance structures of banks and other financial institutions. In particular, contributors to this literature propose tightening the fiduciary duties under which officers and directors of the relevant financial institutions labor. I argue in this symposium article that such proposals are doomed to failure under all circumstances save one - namely, that under which the relevant financial institutions are in whole or in part treated as publicly owned. The argument proceeds in two parts. I first show that the financial dysfunctions that culminate in financial crises are not primarily the products of defects in individual rationality or morality, ubiquitous as such defects of course always are. Rather, I argue, fragility in the financial markets stems from what I elsewhere dub recursive collective action problems, pursuant to which multiple acts of individual rationality aggregate into instances of collective calamity. This form of vulnerability is endemic to banking and financial markets. I next show that the best understanding of fiduciary obligation is that pursuant to which she who is subject to the obligation minimizes the 'space,' or separateness, that subsists between her and the beneficiary of her obligation.
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Are Bank Fiduciaries Special?